


Hope

by khallucifer



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, I watched the episode at midnight and then immediately wrote this and fell asleep, M/M, Spock tells Jim everything, kind of, no beta we die like men, so sorry if its a bit shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khallucifer/pseuds/khallucifer
Summary: Spock has carried this secret for so long--too long. Finally, he breaks down, and Jim is there to pick up the pieces.





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

> You guys, that episode KILLED me, and after Michael's "go get that Kirk dick" speech I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Sorry if it's awful lmao. Kudos/feedback is appreciated!

The rain fell heavily outside and Spock did not hear it.

He watched it, absently, though he felt as though he were a thousand universes away and a thousand years into the future. He dreamt, sometimes, when he did dream, of what Michael was doing, and he awoke with tears on his face and he did not tell Jim Kirk about what was bothering him, when he asked.

Today, though—today, he would tell him, even though it was treason, even though _he himself_ had called it treason, because the fear and the pain and the guilt was tearing him apart and he could no longer do it alone.

Pike was gone, and he was alone, and he could not do it any more.

So he wrapped his fingers around his mug, cataloguing the chips that adorned the rim, but distantly, because he didn’t feel that he was really there at all. His head was swimming, and he thought he might be swaying, but he had been steady enough to make his tea and he could be steady enough to explain why he was the way that he was, and then he would not need to be steady anymore because Jim could steady him.

Jim would steady him.

The rain fell distantly, and Spock heard it only distantly, though he watched it through the window of their San Francisco apartment and wondered, painfully, what Michael would think of him.

He liked to think that she would be proud, that she would be happy for him. That he could introduce her to his Jim, and that they would be friends. They were both of them mad enough and bright enough and in love with space enough to get along, he thought, and they both knew well enough what it was to feel pain that he thought they might even be friends, had Michael—

Had she—

He could not finish the thought—dared not to, when his hands were shaking so. He waited several moments, waited for his hands to steady, before he took another sip of his tea—and it had gone cold, though it felt like he had been sat there only moments, although the brightening sky outside told him that he must have been sat there for hours—and wondered what Michael was doing.

~

“Spock, baby, what are you doing?” Jim’s voice cut through the steady rumbling of thunder that Spock had found himself beginning to get lost in. It emanated from somewhere behind him—their bedroom, his brain helpfully supplied—and sounded groggy from sleep. He must have just woken up, though the sky, where it was visible, very far away and behind the cover of the blackening clouds, was a delicate shade of pink due to the sun being not yet fully risen.

“Waiting,” he told Jim calmly, because that was the only appropriate answer.

Jim huffed a laugh, before padding over and appropriating a part of Spock’s blanket, settling onto the couch beside him easily and folding his legs enough that he might pull the sheet around the two of them more thoroughly so as to contain the heat. Spock could not look him in the face.

“Waiting for me?” he asked, reaching out to pull Spock’s mug from his hands and steal a sip. He pulled a face, because Jim didn’t like Spock’s Vulcan tea, though he didn’t relinquish the mug. He was looking at Spock’s face, he knew: searching there for some hint as to what was going on, why he had risen from their bed and isolated himself in their sitting room, why he could not look at Jim now.

Spock looked down at his hands, suddenly bereft of anything to do and laying uselessly in his lap. He clenched them, before unclenching and clasping his hands together. He was stalling, he knew.

Suddenly it was too much. It was—this was too much. It had been years, _years,_ since he had lost Michael, and still her absence hounded him, haunted him, hurt him. Not all the time, not even _most_ of the time, but there were moments, days and weeks, when the void in his life where she should have been threatened to consume him and there was nothing for him to do but find a small, quiet, isolated spot, and break down.

He needed to break down. He needed to run and be vulnerable. He needed to hide and lay down and allow his emotions to spill out, to consume him, so that he could get back up and carry on and continue the pretence that nothing was wrong.

Except he couldn’t, anymore, because he had Jim, and simply breaking down alone was not good enough anymore.

“Jim, I—” he began, and then stopped, because the words got caught in his throat and he was too hot and too cold and tears— _tears!_ —were sliding down his face, and he couldn’t be there any more, so he forced himself to slide back and cover his face with his hands and he couldn’t _breathe—_

Except then Jim was there, and he wasn’t pulling away his hands, or wiping away his tears, or even acknowledging the emotions that Spock was so shamefully displaying—no, he was just… _holding_ him.

Just holding him.

Spock let himself be held.

He let himself crawl into Jim’s lap, and sling his legs around Jim’s waist and draw his arms around Jim’s shoulder’s and bury his face into Jim’s neck, and he let himself cry. And Jim’s arms came up around him clutching him, holding him, and he was murmuring wordless platitudes and quiet encouragement and soothing noises, and the two of them stayed like that until Spock had stopped shaking, and felt like he could breathe again.

“Jim,” he whispered shakily, and breathed.

“Spock,” Jim whispered back, reaching up to cup his jaw, fingers feathering across his cheek, and Spock closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. The blanket lay forgotten on the floor—one or both of them had shrugged it away—and though their apartment was cold he felt like he could never be cold again, sitting there in Jim’s embrace.

“I—” he began, before his throat closed, but he forced himself past it. He could do this.

“I have a sister,” he said, refusing to meet Jim’s eyes.

Jim stayed silent. The hand that had been resting on Spock’s back slipped down to his waist, and their it stayed, a comforting presence. The heat bled through Spock’s shirt and filled him, warming him, healing him, a little at a time, as it had been since the first time Jim had touched him, and every time since.

“She’s on the _Discovery_.”

Jim sucked in a breath.

Before, when the _Enterprise_ crew was still new, and still getting to know one another, there had been a running joke that Spock had a secret family he did not tell anybody about. He had ignored it, of course—he had been around humans for long enough by this point to know that they were not being cruel, that they were just young and excited, that they only wanted to know more about him, this man they would be spending the next years of their lives in close proximity with. That his silence on the subject was like catnip to such a group of explorers and scientists who had dedicated their lives to seeking out truths.

He had ignored these allegations for long enough that eventually they had gone away, but he had not forgotten them, when the others likely had.

 _Discovery’s_ fate was common knowledge, if not talked about. They’d kept their word, all those that were involved—they didn’t speak of her, nor did they speak of what had _actually_ happened to her. Doubtless, Jim had noticed Spock’s use of the present tense rather than the past when referencing the ship.

“Spock—” Jim began, tilting his face up just enough that they could lock eyes, and Spock felt another treacherous tear escape his iron hold, before he closed his eyes in acceptance.

And told Jim everything.

He told Jim of the Red Angel, and _Discovery_ —how his sister was Starfleet’s first mutineer, and yes, she was _that_ Michael Burnham—and once he began, he found that he could not stop. He told Jim of what he had learned of the Mirror Universe, and the Terrans, and Georgiou. He spoke of the spore drive, and Stammets, and the brilliance that drove that ship. He spoke of Pike, and Leland, and Cornwall, and the _Enterprise_ and _Discovery_ crew that had made Spock their family, and he cried, again, for the losses that he had suffered, and Jim did not judge him—Jim _held_ him, and kept him close, and cradled him as best he could.

Eventually, when Spock had run out of stories to tell and his tears had dried and the rain outside had stopped and the sun filtered merrily into the room, Jim finally spoke.

“I can’t believe you’re _actually_ related to Starfleet’s first and only mutineer. Actually, d’you know what, I can. That is exactly the kind of family background I’d expect you to have.”

Spock felt his lips twitch, pressed as they were into Jim’s chest—they were laying down, now, Spock sprawled heavily across Jim as they lay entangled on the couch—though he kept his expression neatly schooled.

“And _Discovery’s_ in the future? Man, I can’t believe Pike lied to me every time I asked about it. I knew something was funky about that whole story, but nobody told me everything. I owe him a beer—he’s a better liar than I gave him credit for, obviously. And Michael—we’ll get her back, Spock.”

This gave him pause.

“Jim?”

He looked up, up at Jim’s smiling face, looking down at him quizzically, as though confused that Spock had expected anything else.

“She’s your sister—she’s family. Of course we’re getting her back.”

Spock just cocked an eyebrow.

“And how do you propose that we do that?”

“Oh, I dunno. We’ll figure it out,” he said confidently, laying his head back, and Spock could not find it in him to argue. He rested his head against Jim’s chest again.

Of course, he should have expected this. Of course Jim would want to get her back.

For the first time in years, Spock allowed hope for such a thing to bloom in his chest.

Yes. They would get her back—they would bring Michael home.


End file.
